Friday, March 23, 2012

Showing Off Recent Acquisitions

I recently made many new acquisitions to my book collection,
many of them in French. Those of you who read this blog regularly will by now
know that I regularly read and review French mysteries on here, especially the
work of Paul Halter. But there are some other authors whose books I’ve acquired
recently, and I’d like to take this time to show off the new books—these are
French mysteries you can look forward to my reading and reviewing in the near
future, with a few more in the mail that I expect next week. What is the point
of all this? Well, I want to show off, and since I have a blog, I can do it.
The regularly-scheduled programme will be back soon enough.

First up, we have the work of Paul Halter. I bought a used
copy of Le Mystère de l’allée des Anges (The Mystery of Angels’ Lane; right) as
well as a copy of his brand new young adult novel Spiral.

Next is an author I am not familiar with: Martin Méroy. From
right to left, the books (with titles translated into English) are: Lead for the Family, Silence—We Kill!, Murder in a Dark Room, and A
Knife in the Wound. Blogger TomCat has reviewed two ofthese
books on his blog, and one (Murder in
a Dark Room) even made it onto his list of best locked-room mysteries. (Of
course, the list’s reliability is challenged by the inclusion of What a Body! and The Curse of the Bronze Lamp… I’m kidding, I’m kidding!)

TomCat also reviewed the next author featured here:
Maurice-Bernard Endrèbe. His review of Elvire
à la tour monte(Elvire Climbs
the Tower) was far from enthusiastic, however, and he tore its impossible
crime to shreds. (I’ve since found out what the ending was, and I must agree it’s
a complete let-down.) Endrèbe was far more prolific as a translator, famously
translating John Dickson Carr’s The
Burning Court. But he did write some of his own books—one of these, at the
far right, is his only other ‘impossible crime’ novel, La Vieille dame sans merci (The
Old Lady without Mercy). The other two are Danger Intime (Intimate Danger) and Gondoles pour le cimitière (Gondolas for the Cemetery).

Finally, we move on to the work of a personal favourite
author of mine—René Reouven, who has a new page on this blog devoted to his
work. The four books pictured here from left to right (with titles translated
into English) are: Grandfather is Dead,
The Best One’s Will is Always the
Strongest, Six Characters in Search
of a Murder, and Death to the Jury.
(I’m also awaiting Reouven’s newest book, a young adult novel.)

Last, but not least, is a book I’ve been eager to find for a
long time. It is the French equivalent of Robert Adey’s classic bibliography Locked Room Murders. Titled Chambres closes|crimes impossibles (Locked
rooms|Impossible Crimes), it is a French-language survey of the impossible
crime sub-genre. Not all of these books are French—in fact, quite a fair chunk
I’ve seen are English-language novels—but it promises to portray quite a bit of
the French impossible crime landscape with spoilers very cleverly hidden while
being stated. (It’s a long story.) My copy is also inscribed by one of the
authors, M. Philippe Fooz—I’m very grateful to him for having pointed out
several French novels I would enjoy, and his list of suggestions played a major
role in these recent acquisitions.